Scholarly Papers (Library)
Submission Guidelines & Instructions

Style and Format Guidelines

All submissions must be submitted via e-mail in one of the following formats:

Clean HTML* (.htm or .html)

Plain text** (.txt)

Rich Text Format (.rtf)

MS Word (.doc or .docx)

WordPerfect (.wpd)

MS Works (.wps)

Notes:
* Word-processing programs seldom do a good job of producing clean HTML. Any other format is preferable to HTML produced by a word-processing program.
** Plain text is perfectly acceptable for essays which do not require anything other than straightforward, plain HTML formatting. (In other words, a submission which requires nothing other than plain-text formatting may be submitted simply as the body of an e-mail.)

Style:

Style

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is used as the primary reference and standard. Scholarly paper submissions are expected to adhere to CMS standards.

Check the Errors to Avoid page before submitting--and preferably before composing--your paper.

No fancy typographic symbols--please!

No superscripts, no subscripts, no "smart quotes," no end-of-line hyphenation, no em dashes, no en dashes. Use plain text quotes, dashes and symbols only.

Use the following in place of superscripts for notes: [1]. (Note that the conversion of superscript footnotes to the Secular Web standard produces much unnecessary work for the editor.)

Notes:
1) All papers accepted for publication will be edited for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and readability. (Note: this includes "Americanization" of British spelling and punctuation.)
2) Please retain a copy of your submission for possible use in checking our work.

Biographical Introduction

IMPORTANT: If you have not yet been published on the Secular Web, please include brief biographical information. Include your name as you wish it to appear on the byline and any other information about yourself which you would like included. (Note that we do not usually make your e-mail address public, but you will be notified of any feedback to your published work.)

Copyright Release

Before a Scholarly Paper can be published in the Library, you must give us permission to publish it and agree to the terms of the Internet Infidels Copyright Release by providing us a completed and signed Copyright Release form. This nonexclusive Copyright Release helps to protect your intellectual property and serves to clarify our relationship with you so as to minimize the likelihood of misunderstandings. If your paper is selected for publication, you will be asked for a completed and signed Copyright Release form. You may, of course, submit a Copyright Release at the time of submission of your paper. If you would not be able to accept the terms of the Copyright Release, please withhold your submission.

The completed and signed Copyright Release form should either be faxed to (877) 501-5113, or mailed to the following address:

Note: Internet Infidels retains the electronic copyright to all original articles composed for the Secular Web but gladly and automatically grants permission to authors to republish their own articles elsewhere if the following notice is included:

Note: This article was previously published on the Secular Web. This file and many more are available at the Secular Web: http://www.infidels.org/

Compensation

Generally speaking, articles are published without compensation. If you expect to be compensated for your article, please make that clear when you first submit the article for consideration.

Reader Feedback

Feedback to published articles is received via email. Authors are routinely notified of any feedback to their published work. Although authors are not required to do so, it is greatly appreciated when authors respond to feedback to their work.

Procedure

Compose your article following the Style and Format guidelines, above.

If you have not yet been published on The Secular Web, please include a brief biographical introduction.

Submit your article via e-mail by clicking on the following link. (Note: if JAVA script is disabled in your browser settings, the link will not appear; instead you will see an image of the e-mail address to be used.)

NOTE: If after reading through these Guidelines and Instructions, you have unanswered questions regarding submissions, please click on the following link to e-mail us. (Note: if JAVA script is disabled in your browser settings, the link will not appear; instead you will see an image of the e-mail address to be used.)